After San Francisco, California my 2012 USA west coast holiday continued as I caught the Amtrak Coast Starlight train to Seattle, Washington State. This photo set contains all the highlights of my time spent walking around Seattle.
Selected Seattle, Washington State highlights are explained as a travel diary / journal below.
When I told people I was visiting Seattle they warned that it would rain all the time so I should pack plenty of wet weather clothing. As it turned out the end of September is the perfect time to visit Seattle because the temperatures are comfortable and it didn’t rain even one drop the whole week I was there.
When visiting a country it’s a great idea to participate in national pastimes. Baseball is one of the main ones in the USA so I went along with a friend who lives in Seattle to watch the local Mariners team play a home game against the Texas Rangers. Safeco Field is a great place to watch a baseball match as you can get a good view of the game without having to spend a lot of money.
I had a great time and this is a sample of the atmosphere including Seattle Mariners batter Eric Thames hitting a home run.
While not as well known as San Francisco, there is lots of good street art to be found in Seattle if you look around.
If you’re heading north to colder areas of North America I highly recommend checking out the Federal Army & Navy Surplus store located at 2112 First Avenue, Seattle. I bought a US military surplus Alpha Industries N-3B Parka there and it served me very well during my trip north to Alaska, even in rain and against cold winds.
I strongly advise that you buy the Seattle Citypass which at time of writing gave you access to the Space Needle, Seattle Aquarium, Argosy Cruises Harbor Tour, Pacific Science Center, EMP Museum and Woodland Park Zoo OR The Museum of Flight for only $69 total which is a big saving on buying each ticket separately.
I visited the Space Needle just before sunset and stayed on the viewing deck for over an hour so I could take slow exposure photos of the Seattle skyline as it lit up at night.
During the Argosy Cruises Harbor Tour you get to see the Seattle skyline by day and be told by the guide on board about the history of different buildings along the route.
If you visited Seattle and didn’t spend a few hours exploring the aquarium I’d be otterly surprised and say you were quite sealy 🙂
For my next activity I decided to catch the big Bainbridge island commuter ferry (30 minutes each way) and walk around the island before returning. Washington State Ferries operates the largest ferry fleet in the USA.
The next day I caught a local Seattle bus to the The Museum of Flight where I spent more than half a day taking photos and learning about the history of aviation and space flight. It is a must see for any aviation buffs or eager space cadets young and old alike.
Outside of the museum there’s a statue of Lt Col. Michael P Anderson, Astronaut – who died with his crewmates on the ill fated STS-107 Space Shuttle Columbia.
Whether you’re interested in Lockheed’s M-21 Spyplane, a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17 jet fighter, BA’s Concorde or the ex-Airforce One Boeing you’ll be sure to be as enthralled for hours as I was.
I didn’t have much time to spend at the Pacific Science Center but I managed to watch a 45 minute IMAX documentary about Polar Bears and achieve one of my long term goals of taking a sharp photo of butterflies in flight.
Last stop was the EMP Museum – an eclectic collection of Music + Sci-fi + Pop Culture housed in a unique set of buildings designed by Frank Gehry.
Since I’m a big fan of science fiction I spent most of my time in that section looking at exhibits from popular TV shows like Star Trek TOS and Babylon 5 as well as famous influential books like Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card and Dune by Frank Herbert.
While visiting Seattle I stayed at a single room in HI Seattle next to the train station. They serve a generous included big breakfast, the front desk is manned by very friendly staff 24/7 and most evenings they have a social event to get everyone together and talking like a pancake night, pasta night etc.
Leave a Reply